Hi all,
My 8 year old is asking if he can learn how to program.
I’d like to support this, and it seems like it’s not a transient interest as he’s been all over scratch, and using things like minecraft commands for the last year. I have an old (pre 2017) MacBook Air I can set up for this. How do I / what would you advise I set up for him, to a) keep him safe online (he’s 8!) and b) give him the tools he needs in a structured way.
I believe you’d be able to load up Swift Playgrounds on that now as a “here’s a place to start” - https://www.apple.com/swift/playgrounds/ - it is a very safe place to start.
In general, I’m gonna ask “why?” for loading up a Linux distribution on a Mac unless there is specific software that you’re after that only runs on Linux. For the most part, launch a terminal and you’re getting 90% of what the Linux experience has to offer (Mac OSX is a unix certified operating system).
I’d look also for games that are programming under the covers or related. Factorio (circuits) and Minecraft (red stone logic) are two that come to mind first.
Shenzen I/O (and the rest of Zachtronics) along with Human Resource Machine and 7 Billion Humans might be a bit more, but also something he could “grow into”.
I would suggest staying as far away from Roblox as possible.